Ranked 219 over 220 passports existing in the world, the Lebanese passport is surprisingly the most expensive one worldwide.

With only 5,296,760 Km2 that someone holding a Lebanese passport can visit without a visa, a Lebanese citizen should pay a world high 40$ ( and 70$ if you need it the same day ) to get that famous blue passport for 1 year. On the other hand, Danish and Japanese passports for example, allow for more than 73,000,000 Km2, which is more than 15 times than our passport. But a Danish pays 10.4$ for a year ( 104$ for a 10 year passport), while a Japanese pays 13.5$ (135$ for 10 years) .

A simple search on Google about the most expensive passport in the world will point out to the Turkish passport, that was, in fact, the most expensive one, before its cost was halved in June 2010 after increasing public demands, leaving the first position for the Lebanese passport. A Turkish now gets a 10 year passport for 247$.

Such a public demand is far from happening in Lebanon where people are too busy getting in conflicts with each others, and supporting to death their political leaders. Moreover, the majority of Lebanese ministers and deputies have dual citizenship and therefore do not give a shit about the Lebanese passport condition, so we can’t expect neither from any interior minister to lower the passport fees, nor from any foreign affairs minister to improve the passport ranking through negotiations with other countries anytime soon.

Lid, I did not disrespect Sri Lanka. I just said that it’s the only country behind us in the following passport ranking: http://www.doyouneedvisa.com/passport/
Btw, I know that Colombo is a very beautiful city.

We should better talk about how much our tiny “hariri international airport” cost instead of debating about this kind of silly rankings. Our passport is 40 dollars, which is not that expensive considering the expenses we have to face by having Israel as a neigboor since 1948.

I guess Nadim has an uncle that works for the Passport bureau, if this is not corruption my friend in which category would you fit it? lifestyle? weather? …… how can you explain this fact? i wont even elaborate on other ‘strange’fees in leboland

I will have you corrected nadim, if everything individualy was not considered corruption then we do not hace corruption in lebanon, just saying “shou wa2fet 3al passport hala2” will not fix other issues!!! Us lebanese should wake up from the long snooze we are in and start handling our own shit, we are the major punchline of any joke world wide. Get out of bed and look around. Pity

The entire premise that some passports are “better” than others and the fact that there is even a “ranking” is a form of innuendo that borders racism. The Lebanese people are spread around the globe and most of them are successful, self-made entrepreneurs. What would be more interesting to know is what the criteria are for ranking passports? I would venture to say that the criteria used to derive this data and results are outdated. Further, Lebanon sits in the most hostile neighborhood in the world in terms of aggression by its neighbors. Israel and Syria, both enemies of each other and enemies of Lebanon as a sovereign state. The “price” of a passport should also be based on its production cost, its circulation and validity as a hassle-free travel instrument. The ministry of interior in Lebanon should set a lower price for this document and the ministry of exterior should appoint a point person or committee to promote visa exchanges with other countries and establish a campaign aimed at washing away the stigma of the “Lebanese” Passport as an inferior to others document. The only valid reason I can see for a lower “ranking” of the Lebanese passport is the fact that Lebanese people have been forced to overstay their visas in other countries due to invasions by different aggressors over the past 40 years and civil strife caused by foreign sponsors such as Syria and Israel that have forced a large number of Lebanese citizens to flee their land and seek safety in other countries.

Thank you Vincent. Very informative. I couldn’t fight the urge to add that the more demeaning fact is that a Lebanese mother cannot apply for a passport for her minor child(ren) unless she gets the permission of the father. Not to mention that she can’t travel with her child(ren) without the father’s permission. I think you should write something about this subject too. Maybe we can identify other countries that treat mothers in such a way. We Lebanese should stop thinking that we are better than people from other nationalities because we are simply not!!

what u forgot to put in ur subject that if u live outside lebanon and want to make a new passport than u must to pay 70 $ per year and u must to wait over 5 month to get it while another country u can get a new passport in less than 2 week

Ok, it’s an excellent article!… But what next? We need action too not only paroles, paroles!
Lebanese life is being unfair not only with this passport issue. We cannot get access to arabic countries when at the same time all arabs are entering Lebanon with no problem…

good one, talking about high fees without getting anything back (road safety etc…) is car registration, in other countries u pay around 70 to 100 euros to register a porche 2010, here i payed (3 years ago) 2000 dollars for mini cooper 2002!!!! rip off…but ur preaching to the choir man:) we r f**ckin stoned and high on politics and religion…and yeah on what’s going on around us like we r the center of universe and in fact we r just fake ass pple and we need million year to be civilized…just look at the way we drive and u get the picture:):)

Can you cite the source for Lebanon’s passport prices? Both sites dont mention Lebanon even though one of the sites claims to list the ten most expensive passports world wide (Lebanon is not in the list). Why did you even cite them if you didnt even use the Turkish price they list? Please give us the correct sources

Hi Omar,
Lebanese passport price is known and cited in the article. It’s 40$ for 1 year ( or 200$ for 5 years).
The website mentioned the old price of the Turkish passport. You can click on the link of the Turkish passport to check the details and how its cost was halved.

Rifakh, I don’t know what the situation is exactly like in Lebanon, but where I live (Canada), both parents have to sign off on a child’s passport application. And if a parent is traveling with a child, they need written consent from the other parent before they’re allowed to leave the country. I believe laws in the US are similar. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, especially in cases where the parents are separated.

Hi Lara,
The law in Canada and the US states that both parents sign and not only one which is fine and fair. Here in Lebanon ONLY the father (or the mother only with the father’s consent) can travel or apply for a passport.

Interesting read, I gotta tell ya… I havent renewed it in like 5 yrs and actually still considering legally dropping it. That’ll open up a slot for another nationality. Been travelling with my other for yrs, you just get treated different… period.

Before we demand our government do something about that, we should ask ourselves why Lebanese (in general) break the law of every country they live in, why we consider it an act of clever to exploit the services and system of the “developed” countries. Until then it’s natural that they require full investigation before giving us visa.

Btw, Lebanese can travel to 37 countries without a pre-arranged visa. But that doesn’t mean that Lebanon has arranged with 37 countries for that. Most of them, I guess, have open visa policy for all other countries.

That’s because Nabih Berri and Walid Jumblatt each want their share of the contract to get the passports printed and distributed. The passports cost less than 10$ to produce, and yet they are sold at such high prices, commission included, as per the instructions of the two aforementioned politicians.